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Tesla, software and disruption

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Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#111

Post by Fins »

mdeeks wrote: post #71
brian-armstrong wrote: post #62

Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.

I have found it to actually not be a problem at all in my wife's Model 3. Almost everything you normally do while driving is one or two taps away and doesn't require as much cognitive load as you would think (Mirror adjustment sucks though). Mapping/Directions on the big touch screen is amazing. The radio/volume controls are on the steering wheel just like most cars. Most modern cars use digital displays for AC now a…

Never drive a Macan, but unless Audi completely borked the UX (unlikely), first any adjustment to AC will be overlaid on the MMI/Navi screen, so you don't need to look down, and the process of "make it colder/warmer" involves nothing more than reaching to a physical button (easy to grab even in a moving car) and giving it a few clicks in one or another direction.

Saying that "one or two taps away" is in any way comparable in either usability or safety seems rather like saying that a coal-powered steam car form 100 years ago is as clean as that Tesla.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#112

Post by trisomy21 »

slededit wrote: post #110
trisomy21 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said: “The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“ I brought attention to this and showed how ridiculous of an assertion it was. And now you're saying: "I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is." The other quotes you've added ar…

You did say it was ridiculous, but never proved it. Apple may have had money in the bank but selling a luxury product in the middle of a financial crisis was an up hill battle. Consumer confidence was at all time lows and disposable income saw the biggest drop since the great depression. People were more concerned about whether they'd still have a job and savings rates upticked dramatically while salaries fell.

Have you looked at Apple's performance during that time period? As I pointed out in my previous post, Apple was sitting on $25B in cash in 2008. Additionally, their annual revenue nearly tripled and their profit quadrupled from 2007-2010. That's not an up hill battle.

All your talk about the economic environment during the recession is irrelevant because Apple had $25B cash in the bank and the iPhone was a hit, even though it was a luxury item being sold during the recession. The massive scale of their business and their overall success insulated them from the larger ramifications of the economic downturn. Tesla is operating in the opposite economic environment today, but they are not as financially surefooted as Apple was during the launch of the iPhone. So, to get back to the point, to claim that the financial challenges Apple faced bringing the iPhone to market were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's, just isn't true.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#113

Post by slededit »

trisomy21 wrote: post #112
slededit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did say it was ridiculous, but never proved it. Apple may have had money in the bank but selling a luxury product in the middle of a financial crisis was an up hill battle. Consumer confidence was at all time lows and disposable income saw the biggest drop since the great depression. People were more concerned about whether they'd still have a job and savings rates upticked dramatically while salaries fell.

Have you looked at Apple's performance during that time period? As I pointed out in my previous post, Apple was sitting on $25B in cash in 2008. Additionally, their annual revenue nearly tripled and their profit quadrupled from 2007-2010. That's not an up hill battle. All your talk about the economic environment during the recession is irrelevant because Apple had $25B cash in the bank and the iPhone was a hit, even…

Yes and making the iPhone a hit is a lot harder when your customers don't have any money to spend.

Nobody is saying Apple couldn't afford the R&D to build the physical phones.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#114

Post by jfoster »

kbob wrote: post #107
jfoster wrote: post #67

"That is, it’s entirely possible that Waymo, or someone else, gets autonomy to work in 202x with a $1000 or $2000 LIDAR and vision sensor suite and Tesla still doesn’t have it working with vision alone." In this scenario there still may be an upside for Tesla. For Waymo to cover the world in LIDAR-equipped cars will take decades. Tesla already sells cars all over the world. The Tesla car sharing network may scale ext…

Is LIDAR actually better than video? If I understand LIDAR correctly, it gives a 1D array of depth data and is fairly limited in either resolution or speed. Video provides much more data at higher speed, and it seems like it'd be easier to identify objects from 2D color images. Stereo (never mind eight cameras) can be used to derive depth information. But I'm not a practitioner, so educate me. How does LIDAR beat vid…

I was quoting the article, but I think LIDAR is a bit more like having a 3D model of the world around the vehicle. The processing of a 1D array into a usable point cloud is not of concern at the frontier of autonomous vehicle research.

My understanding is that the main reason Tesla would choose video instead is that cameras are super-cheap in comparison to LIDAR, and theoretically good enough if you have AI that can understand what the cameras are seeing. I have a feeling that Musk is pushing OpenAI toward researching the technology that Tesla will need to make their approach work. I hope they are successful; it is probably the fastest path toward ubiquitous autonomous vehicles. It's likely that Waymo can get theirs working faster, but they can't scale the distribution side as fast as Tesla could.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#115

Post by jfoster »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #108
jfoster wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I wonder if that could be detected and compensated for, though?

Absolutely. My brain tells me I'm hot, and my motor system activates to move my arm, which adjusts the climate controls, bringing the temperature back within tolerance. It's pretty sophisticated.

Also could be done by the car's software thermostat determining how much resistance it is up against in keeping the car to a particular temperature and adjusting that way.

Lots of resistance => Lots of sun hitting the vehicle => Set the temperature a bit lower.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#116

Post by gizmo »

kjksf wrote: post #77
gizmo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla lost money on the Australia project. They bought the battery cells from Samsung and put them in a Tesla branded unit. Samsung also could have installed the battery themselves (always cheaper to cut out a middle man), but Tesla was willing to buy their cells and then sell them at a loss to Australia. Tesla got a ton of publicity out of it, though, so it was probably a win for all parties involved.

And your source for that information? (other than using Samsung cells). I'm really curious because claiming they lost money on that project is rather specific. Also, claiming that Samsung could have done that is specific. Was Samsung one of the 90 bidder on that project? Did Samsung do any utility-scale storage installation. Does Samsung even have a competing product? Contrary to what you seem to assume, Powerpacks i…

Samsung bid, Tesla underbid them, and yes Samsung has utility level energy storage solutions:

http://www.samsungsdi.com/ess/energy-storage-system-applicat...

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#117

Post by trisomy21 »

slededit wrote: post #113
trisomy21 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Apple's performance during that time period? As I pointed out in my previous post, Apple was sitting on $25B in cash in 2008. Additionally, their annual revenue nearly tripled and their profit quadrupled from 2007-2010. That's not an up hill battle. All your talk about the economic environment during the recession is irrelevant because Apple had $25B cash in the bank and the iPhone was a hit, even…

Yes and making the iPhone a hit is a lot harder when your customers don't have any money to spend. Nobody is saying Apple couldn't afford the R&D to build the physical phones.

It's not harder when you have $25B in cash to spend on fancy marketing, advertising, promotion etc. Do you not understand how massive of an advantage that is? It effectively makes you recession proof. Additionally, you can look at Apple's financials to see that they had no problem selling millions of iPhones through the recession. In fact Q4 of 2009 was their most profitable quarter ever (up until that point) which was the tail end of the recession. It was a radically successful launch by all metrics.

Any way you look at it, launching the iPhone, given Apple's cash, marketing muscle, and hw/sw expertise, wasn't as challenging (even in a recession)as bringing an electric vehicle to market and it by no means was "exponentially more difficult" – in the words of the OP.

I don't have anything more to add to this discussion. I think it's clear that the OP's claim is incredibly uninformed and wildly inaccurate.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#118

Post by tonyedgecombe »

_7fvc wrote: post #16

I think an important advantage is vertical integration. Similar to Apple and iPhone, Tesla controls most of the stack. They can do a lot more than their competitors.

Mainstream car companies used to do that then decided it wasn't a good idea and that their suppliers were better at innovation.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#119

Post by sparkzilla »

Latteland wrote: post #100
sparkzilla wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The I-Pace range isn't that much different from the Tesla. Anyway, the point isn't that the I-Pace is better, it's that it -- and the many other EVs coming from major manufacturers -- is competitive enough to take sales away from Tesla.

there's no supercharger like network for the i-pace, making it only a city car. Tesla can drive from seattle to bamff, or portland to san diego or across the country. no other car can do that.

Tesla has no monopoly on charging stations, which are popping up everywhere. In the UK, for example: https://www.zap-map.com/live/

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#120

Post by dragontamer »

trisomy21 wrote: post #117
slededit wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and making the iPhone a hit is a lot harder when your customers don't have any money to spend. Nobody is saying Apple couldn't afford the R&D to build the physical phones.

It's not harder when you have $25B in cash to spend on fancy marketing, advertising, promotion etc. Do you not understand how massive of an advantage that is? It effectively makes you recession proof. Additionally, you can look at Apple's financials to see that they had no problem selling millions of iPhones through the recession. In fact Q4 of 2009 was their most profitable quarter ever (up until that point) which w…

> It's not harder when you have $25B in cash to spend on fancy marketing, advertising, promotion etc. Do you not understand how massive of an advantage that is?

Come on. Its Mr. Musk's decision to make a company take advantage of debt markets instead of waiting for a few years for the Roadster or Model S to make some profits. Tesla's current financial situation is 100% the decision of Musk.

Musk chose debt and stock offerings because he wanted to take advantage of bull market conditions. He's received something on the order of ~$10 Billion from investors, either from the debt market or the stock market (IPOs or Secondary offerings).

If Tesla were to try its strategy of "IPO to get a ton of money each year, every year" during any other time in US history, it would have literally come across a recession and run out of money.

The Gigafactory was literally built on top of debt and stock offerings. Tesla never had that money to begin with.

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